Prologue 2 #6
My glance flicked to the man in the sports coat.
He was probably about my height but had to have a good thirty pounds on me.
All of it looked to be muscle, if the thighs that strained the seams of his pants and the way his shoulders filled out his suit jacket were any judge. He was hot, but in an understated way.
“I’m Detective David Jarreau, Mason. I work on the City of Milwaukee’s human trafficking task force. I’d like to ask you some questions about what happened at the hotel.”
Jarreau.
“The beat cop…” I whispered, not realizing I had spoken out loud until I saw the confusion cross his face. He was the one who had sent me back to CPS years ago.
“What?” He asked.
I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry. Tira offered me a sip of water from a cup on the bedside table. I didn’t think anything had ever tasted as good as that water did right then. She cautioned me not to drink too much, then set the water back down and let me speak.
“You bought me a burger and took me to the hospital after I got bit by a rat,” I rasped.
I could see Jarreau sifting through years of memories before recognition dawned and I saw his skin go a little paler.
“Shit, kid,” he growled, running a hand over his tired face. “I tried to find you, but CPS said you had moved with no forwarding address.”
I swallowed hard. I’d always regretted not telling him what had really been going on. There was a kind of quiet strength about Jarreau that made me want to trust him, but I’d learned the hard way that trusting cops was never a good idea.
“I… I don’t remember anything,” I said, looking away and feeling my cheeks heat in embarrassment as I said the words, unable to hold the detective’s gaze.
“Really? I haven’t even asked a question yet,” Jarreau said, a sad smile on his face, like it was the answer he had expected me to come up with.
He moved closer to the bed and sat in a chair beside me. Our heads were almost the same height now, and it was easier to look at him.
“Ricky’s dead, Mason. He can’t hurt you any more,” he said. I closed my eyes in relief.
“I know this is hard, kiddo, but do you know who killed him? A friend? A rival?”
“I don’t remember anything,” I said, wishing I could escape back into the darkness. Confirmation that Ricky was dead was a balm to my soul, but I also knew it wasn’t over. Dreyven was still out there.
“Are you saying you don’t remember anything?” He asked again. “The smallest detail might be the clue we need to put these guys away. And anything you say would be held in the strictest of confidence,” he said.
I shook my head. No way. No fucking way was I painting that bullseye on my back. Ricky might be dead, but Dreyven wasn’t.
“So, what do you remember?” he asked. “Because that little girl had quite the story to tell about being rescued from an evil monster with, and I’m quoting here, ‘four hands, eight legs and at least six butts,’ he smiled gently and quirked an eyebrow at me. “She was very specific about the butts.”
I started to chuckle, but the pain turned it into a groan. Tira stood. “I’m going to go find a nurse to give this poor boy some pain medication. Don’t you tire him out, David,” she said, shaking a finger at the detective.
“No, Ma’am. I will do my best to make sure he’s able to have some peace,” he replied.
Peace. What an odd choice of words I thought to myself. Was there such a thing? Tira made a beeline out of the room, and I could hear her in the hallway calling for a nurse.
I looked back at Jarreau and caught him watching Tira with an affectionate smile.
“She’s a little old for you, isn’t she?” I asked, my words turning to a gasp as I tried to use my legs to scoot up a little in the bed.
A bark of laughter escaped Jarreau before he could stop it.
“Tira? She’s like a second grandmother to me.
I worked under her husband when I was a probie in Solon Springs.
I’d just been hired by the Milwaukee Police Department when her husband passed.
He was a good man, and Tira is a good woman.
Shame about their daughter, though,” he said, pausing to take a sip of his coffee.
“…daughter?” I asked, unable to keep the curiosity out of my voice.
“Yep. She ran away from a rehab facility several years ago, and they never saw her again.” He sat back in his chair and looked at me, his eyes piercing. It was almost as if he was weighing me. Measuring me. After a moment, he continued.
“Mason, I’m going to be straight with you.
I’ve pulled your record. I know you just turned eighteen, but you’ve got about five or six convictions for solicitation.
Each time, you were returned to the care of your…
” he looked down at the paperwork he had pulled from a briefcase next to him.
“…your uncle? One Richard Taylor? And his ‘friend’ Dreyven Reckner.”
I froze in fear. Surely, they wouldn’t send me back to Ricky and Drey. Wait… no, Ricky was dead. At least, I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in that it hadn’t been a dream. The detective had said I’d turned eighteen. Huh, go figure.
“Richard Taylor…” he began reading. “Arrested for gun possession, drugs with intent to distribute, pandering...the list goes on and on. He was also suspected of being one of the biggest human traffickers in Milwaukee.”
I almost cried in relief when he said “was”. Ricky really was dead.
He shook his head at the paperwork. “Why the fuck would they keep sending a kid back to him?”
I tried to shrug, but it hurt too much. I’d wondered the same thing over the years, but Ricky and his buddies had connections. Nothing stuck to them.
“Look, Mason, I’ve been putting a case together against Ricky and Drey,” he said, his brown eyes boring holes in mine as I glanced up in surprise.
“Ricky is now a moot point, but Dreyven is still out there. He is a sadistic bastard of exceptional proportions. And he needs to be put away where he won’t be able to hurt any kid, ever again. ”
Jarreau sighed. “Truth is though, I need help, Mason. I need evidence. A witness. Something. No judge in the city is going to go up against them without hard evidence.”
I suddenly realized where this was heading. Me. He wanted me to testify against Dreyven.
I closed my eyes a moment, the fear rolling over me and bile rising in my throat. Tiny goosebumps ran across my skin, and suddenly I felt incredibly cold. There was no way I could testify against Dreyven.
I shook my head at him. “I can’t,” I whispered.
The goosebumps had changed to tremors and tears started leaking out the sides of my eyes, the room narrowing down to just the sight of my arm in the cast. This was what Dreyven and Ricky had done to me for running.
Dreyven might let me go if I lay low and didn’t make a fuss, but there was no way I could testify. “I can’t. I can’t…I can’t.”
Jarreau just watched as the words bubbled from my mouth, a sad sympathy on his face.
“Okay, Mason. It’s okay,” he said, reaching his hand out to touch my arm.
I jerked away from his touch, which only made the pain in my body worse and I cried out.
“Just... just leave me alone, please?” I begged, tears running down my face.
Jarreau nodded at me, then set a card on the tray table next to the bed.
“If you ever change your mind, this is the phone number for Milwaukee’s confidential informant line. If you need help, if you ever need a way out, call this number, leave this code and wherever you are, I will find you and we will take him down.”
I nodded, and first the doctor, then the nurse, entered the room with Tira.
The nurse carried a syringe filled with some clear liquid, which she injected into my IV.
The tremors stopped, the bright edge of pain became muffled, and my eyelids got too heavy to remain open.
I closed my eyes and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.